In JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, we are presented with a well-developed and rich world in which humans, monsters and wonders of all varieties coexist, in a place bound together by magic. There are seemingly normal people, wizards, witches, ghosts, goblins, snakes, dark lords and more. Harry is brought into this world as an eleven year old boy with no background in this world, which gives the reader someone to relate to, which is a nice way of saying that he is the one through whom we get all of our obvious exposition. The monsters in the text are represented in a very indirect and creative way in this work, in the sense that everyone has a different reaction to them, rather than being universally feared, as in Beowulf or Bisclavret, certain characters who are monstrous to Harry, or his friends, or his family, or even to us, are not considered monstrous to others. This connects to Jeffrey Cohen's fourth thesis in his essay Monster Culture: (Seven Theses), an excerpt from Monster Theory: Reading Culture, in which he theorizes that monsters thrive on the edge of difference; that monsters are created in the gray area between the familiar and the foreign. In Rowling's first Harry Potter novel, the monstrosity of some characters is defined by their familiarity with the characters they interact with: this is seen in the characters of Hagrid, Fluffy, and the Dursleys. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay. The first example of this can be shown in one of the first monsters Harry interacts with: Hagrid. Most readers of the book wouldn't think Hagrid was very monstrous. After all, Harry thinks he's fine, and so do most people at Hogwarts, but the Dursleys disagree. When they first meet, Harry's uncle, Vernon Dursley, responds by grabbing a rifle and demanding that he leave: "'I demand that you leave at once, sir!' he said. 'You're barging in!'” Grid easily overpowers him, taking the gun out of his hands and “bend it into a knot as easily as if it were made of rubber” (Rowling 30). in contrast to Harry's. Although Harry's immediate reaction is not written, he patiently listens to what he has to say and very gratefully accepts the gifts he brings. Vernon does not calm down; briefly: “Uncle Vernon seemed to have regained his courage. He was staring at Hagrid and his fists were clenched,” (Rowling 35). Here he confronts Hagrid directly, threatening him with physical violence. Hagrid calls his bluff, threatening him with the sharp end of a large umbrella, and Vernon ducks once again. Although Vernon's attempts to threaten Hagrid are unsuccessful, it is obvious that he sees Hagrid as a threat. Hagrid is trying to bring magic into Harry's life, and Vernon sees magic as a threat: it's what killed Harry's parents and forced Harry into his normal, boring life. Vernon is afraid of magic because it is out of the ordinary, and he hates things that are unfamiliar to him. This connects very directly with Cohen's fourth theory of the monster, where he writes: "The monster is difference made flesh, come to dwell among us the monster is an embodiment of the Outside, of the Beyond." This line from Cohen's essay quite literally encapsulates Vernon Dursley's situation. Harry is a real, physical manifestation of the wizarding world who has actually come to live and dwell among them, which scares him. So while Hagrid is viewed favorably by Harry, with whom he becomes good friends forthroughout the novel, Hagrid is seen as a monster by Vernon Dursley, who sees all magic as a threat to his way of life. Another monster we see in the text is introduced to us. much later, and that's Fluffy, the three-headed dog. Fluffy is the first of many monsters and precautionary measures within a secret chamber containing the Philosopher's Stone. When Harry, Ron and Hermione first come across Fluffy, they are obviously scared to death: they were not in a room, as she had assumed. They were in a corridor. The forbidden corridor on the third floor. And now they knew why it was forbidden. They were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog that filled all the space between the ceiling and the floor. He stood still, all six eyes fixed on them, and Harry knew that the only reason they weren't already dead was that their sudden appearance had taken him by surprise. (Rowling 96) They are terrified of the monster for obvious reasons: the dogs are typically not large enough to fill an entire hallway space and typically have only one head. And this comes after they were told repeatedly by many of the Hogwarts staff that if they entered the forbidden corridor, “they will die a very painful death” (Rowling 76). So not only are they terrified by the monstrous sight before them, but they are also terrified by the knowledge that Fluffy is just as deadly as she seems, which is later confirmed to them personally. Harry is looking for Professor Snape, and finds him in the staff room, nursing a wound in his leg, this happens shortly after he sees Snape walking towards the forbidden room during a lockdown and Snape complains: "Damn it, what are you supposed to do? " keep your eyes on all three heads at once?" (Rowling 108). This directly shows Harry and his friends how real the threat created by the three-headed dog is. However, Fluffy is not monstrous to Hagrid. Fluffy is one of the pets that Hagrid keeps in the novel. When Harry mentions it to Hagrid, not knowing, Hagrid replies, "Yes, it's mine, he bought it from a Greek boy I met in the pub last year" (Rowling 113) He describes Fluffy as if he were just a normal guard dog, so while the three-headed dog is monstrous to Harry, Ron, Hermione and Professor Snape, Fluffy is just a big dog to Hagrid A third example of a monster in the text is Harry's adoptive family, the Dursleys. They don't treat Harry like a member of the family, or even like a human being in many cases, blaming him for events over which he has no control. During their visit to the zoo for Dudley's birthday, a boa constrictor mysteriously breaks out of its cage when the protective glass disappears, which Vernon blames on Harry: “Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely outside the house before he started on Harry . He was so angry he almost couldn't speak. He managed to say, 'Go into the cupboard, run out of meals,' before collapsing into a chair." With little context or explanation, Vernon assumes that Harry intentionally let the boa constrictor loose and revokes his dinner indefinitely. Also other characters have a strong negative reaction towards the Dursleys. Towards the end of the text, when everyone leaves the train station after the school year, Hermione Granger notices the Dursleys, who Harry befriends throughout the school year. who supposedly learns all about the Dursleys from Harry, is even taken aback by how awful they generally are: it was Uncle Vernon, still red-faced, still moustachioed, still furious at Harry's bravery, carrying an owl in a cage into the a station full of people. “I hope that.